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Runtime: 11:52
0:00 Nissan Could Close Plants in Japan
0:56 Japanese Government Tries to Save Nissan
1:44 Xiaomi YU7 Targets Tesla Model Y
3:20 VW Drops ID Name for EVs
5:16 BMW Using Gen-AI in Purchasing
5:59 Suppliers Love GM, Hate Ford
7:22 Aito Shoves BMW, Mercedes, Audi Aside
8:33 Tesla Cybertruck Trade-In Values Plummet
9:13 Autoline Poll Results on Stop/Start
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
NISSAN COULD CLOSE PLANTS IN JAPAN
Here’s something that’s extremely rare. Nissan is planning to close at least two assembly plants in Japan. Those plants account for 30% of its domestic production. A report out of Japan says Nissan will also close two plants in Mexico, as well as ones in India, Argentina and South Africa. Nissan issued a statement denying the report and said it is based on speculation. However, the report does line-up with cost cutting plans that Nissan revealed last week, which say it wants to close 7 plants globally and cut 20,000 jobs. If Nissan does close plants in Japan, it would be the first time since 2001 and will likely send shock waves through Japanese society.
JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TRIES TO SAVE NISSAN
That’s why we believe that, behind closed doors, the Japanese government is doing all it can to help Nissan survive. First it tried to arrange a merger between Nissan and Honda. When that fell apart, a new report from Japan says that Toyota even offered to help. The report doesn’t say what came of the talks and both automakers declined to comment. Last week, Nissan’s new CEO Ivan Espinosa said the company is still “evaluating potential partners,” which could include Foxconn. The auto industry plays an outsized role in the Japanese economy, and the government realizes that the industry faces unprecedented upheaval, which is why it’s desperate to make Nissan healthy again.
XIAOMI YU7 TARGETS TESLA MODEL Y
After selling over 200,000 examples of its very first model in less than a year, Chinese tech company Xiaomi continues to generate negative headlines. Now owners have started revealing that the panels around the headlamps can warp when sitting out in the sun for long periods of time. The issue is covered under Xiaomi’s free repair program and the fix is said to take around an hour. But it kind of makes you wonder how something like this wasn’t caught during vehicle testing and validation. You know, similar to panel glue that fails too fast. (Cybertruck) However, it looks like some of the complaints against the company have been blown out of proportion. Xiaomi says its legal team uncovered an online smear campaign that started in December of last year and is now being investigated by Chinese authorities. The campaign is alleged to have set up 10,000 social media accounts that used automatic content generators to make up false claims about the company. And there’s likely little coincidence that this is all hitting at a critical time for Xiaomi. The company’s CEO announced today that it’s investing just under $7 billion over the next 10 years to develop its own chips for smartphones. And on Thursday it reveals its second-ever model and its first SUV, the YU7, which is also jumping into one of China’s most competitive segments along with models like the Tesla Model Y. So, what do you think, will Xiaomi win back consumers in China?
VW DROPS ID NAME FOR EVs
Mercedes is dropping EQ from the start of its EV names and will instead put EQ Technology at the end. Toyota dropped 4X from the bZ and gave its newest EV, the bZ Woodland, a more traditional name. Audi shuffled up the naming of both its ICEs and EVs and GM even dropped the Ultium name. Now Volkswagen is the latest to follow in those footsteps. VW Board Member Martin Sander says future electric models will not use ID, instead they will have “proper names.” That means models like the ID.2 and ID.EVERY1 will be called something completely different. The production version of the ID.2, whatever it’s called now, is scheduled to come out sometime next year.
BMW USING GEN AI IN PURCHASING
Gen AI is showing up everywhere and BMW says it’s now using it in its purchasing operations. Automakers have to keep track of thousands of components from thousands of suppliers spread all over the world, and using AI can slash the time it takes to cut through all the clutter. BMW is using gen AI in the analysis and comparison of supplier offers, and in the future, it will perform tasks without human supervision, like monitoring supply chain data and creating reports. Even though BMW is talking about this publicly, we think it’s safe to say that all automakers and suppliers are working on the same thing.
SUPPLIERS LOVE GM, HATE FORD
And speaking of suppliers, the ones in North America really like working with Toyota, Honda and General Motors. And they really don’t like working with Nissan, Ford and Stellantis. That’s the cliff notes of Plante Moran’s 2025 annual Supplier Workings Relation Index. Plante Moran interviewed 665 supplier executives about how they feel the automakers treat them, how well they communicate with them, how much they trust them, how well they work together, whether they’re paid on time and a host of other topics. And there’s a stark difference about how suppliers feel about Toyota, Honda and GM, versus Nissan, Ford and Stellantis. Here’s one interesting observation we’ll throw into the mix. The automakers with good supplier relationships all have higher quality ratings on JD Power’s Vehicle Dependability Survey. And they also have higher profits on a per-vehicle basis. There’s no concrete stat we can point to that says better supplier relationships lead directly to higher quality and profits. But the anecdotal evidence is awfully compelling. By the way, we posted an interview with the authors of the Plante Moran study, which you can find on the Autoline website and our YouTube channel.
AITO SHOVES BMW, MERCEDES, AUDI ASIDE
BMW, Mercedes and Audi have been beaten up in the Chinese market. So have all the other foreign legacy automakers in China, but it’s been a shock to see the vaunted German brands lose sales and market share as easily as the mass market brands. And while the German lux brands promise they’re going to fight their way back, here’s an example of the uphill battle they face. A car company called Seres, which up until recently was selling cheap little minivans for under five grand, shot past Audi, BMW and Mercedes to become the top luxury car brand by sales in China. So much for all their heritage, history and brand equity. It only took Seres three years to climb past them. Sales tripled last year to 427,000 vehicles and Bloomberg reports that its stock is up 120%. Seres is working with Huawei to sell premium SUVs under the Aito brand, both electric and hybrid. And it sure is amazing to see that a cell-phone maker and a cheap van maker could pull off a coup like that in such a short amount of time.
TESLA CYBERTRUCK TRADE-IN VALUES PLUMMET
Tesla started accepting trade-ins of the Cybertruck for new purchases and owners are shocked at how much their electric truck has depreciated. A member of the Cybertruck Owners Club shared the trade-in estimate of his Foundation Series with just over 6,200 miles. Tesla offered him $65,400. Remember, only a year ago that truck sold for $100,000. That means its residual value plunged more than a third. While that is a huge drop, maybe it’s not too surprising since Tesla seems to be struggling to sell new Cybertrucks.
AUTOLINE POLL RESULTS ON STOP/START
We’ve got the results of the latest Autoline Poll where we asked you what you thought of stop/start technology in cars, where your engine turns off when your car comes to a stop, then starts again as soon as you take your foot off the brake. Only 40% of you said you like the system. 50% of you said you hated it. And 10% had other opinions.
A lot of you said it really depended on the car, like Michael J. Danberry, who said, “I recall it working fine in my last gas car Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. I think it depends on the car. On other cars it is very noticeable when it starts back up.”
And a bunch of you, like Bill Kerr, pointed out that it really, “Works best with a hybrid drive, especially a PHEV that doesn’t need the engine to pull away from a stop. Electric AC compressors are much more efficient and reduce the issue w/ stop-start systems.”
Zzzz99599 had a good suggestion. “Just make it a setting that you can turn off once and it stays off,” he says.
Patrick O’Connell has a point of view that’s probably pretty typical. “I didn’t like it at first, but I guess I got used to it because I haven’t even thought about this in years, he says.”
And Mike Carter seemed to speak for all you EV owners. “Our electric cars seem to lack this feature,” he says somewhat sarcastically.
So all you product planners in the audience, take notice. There’s a huge chunk of the car buying public that does not like stop/start. It looks like you either need to make it more seamless, or get rid of it altogether.
But that’s a wrap for this Monday. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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Nissan: This is what happens when you make junk for decades. (Same for Stellantis and Ford. Ironic that Farley used to be a Toyota VP (but for.. Marketing, not for Quality or Reliability)
Japanese Government: wasting its time and $.
VW dropping the name “ID”. Nothing wrong with the name, it was the PRODUCT that was lame. Foolish decision, first they paid some clown an arm and a leg to cough up a name, then, instead of designing a far better car, they change the name. VW, meet Nissan, Stellantis and Ford.
CT Trade-ins. THey are very lucky to even get two-thirds of the $100k truck back after a year and 6k miles. I remember the (far better looking) Jag XJ with the V12, there was an Autoweek depreciation chart and it lost 72% in the first year, if I remember right. Tesla has to give them the trade-in, if they refused, it would not look good for them, but if it does, IT will take a hit too.
With my sister’s 2017 or 2018 Mini, if you turn S/S off, it stays off, but with my 2023 it reverts to “on” with each run cycle. Would they have needed to make that change to get the EPA “credit”? I don’t know any other reason to do that.
Must be a frustrating change for Tesla in the last few years. They got used to going from one success to the next; having waiting lists for vehicles, no penalty in introducing new models years late and more expensive than promised, being the tech darlings of Munro and others.
Then they introduce a truck with many different features, deliver it late and at a much higher price, BUT it’s a dud! Perhaps the shine is off the apple. Certainly many are seeing the Emperor more clearly without clothes.
Albemarle: The CT, NOT Tesla, was a failure. It was developed as a joke, and Musk blundered its intro. The other Teslas, the mass market 3 and Y, and most definitely the S (although I suspect they don’t make the S at a profit, as they still do the Y and 3, and no other Western maker (US or Euro or Japan) can make any EV at a profit still).
So I would not be carried away. The failure of the 3 or Y would have bankrupted Tesla, but the failure of the CT will not. So for those who hate Musk because of his recent politics, wishful thinking.
The Cybertruck is an example of how large government grants can’t help save all models.
isn’t 35% a normal depreciation rate for vehicles that cost 100k? I suspect Tesla isn’t going to be able to sell it at a profit if they’re paying $60k for it on trade. If they take it for 60, break even resale would need to be what, 65?
Have to line up with Albemarle on this one. Tesla sales in every major market have seen dramatic declines. The CyberTruck, despite Tesla predictions, turned out to be the sales flop many experienced automotive executives predicted. Who spends billions to design and launch a vehicle as a joke? I know that is what Elon said, but that is hardly a responsible position for a CEO to take. I expect production of the truck will stop entirely within a year. Aside from dramatic styling, it doesn’t have much going for it.
As volume scales up, EVs at other companies are approaching profitability. GM has shown their EVs to be operationally profitable, which is big progress. Remember that Tesla did not make a profit for nearly ten years. Using the same timeline for other OEMs means that they all have more time to continue to ramp sales volumes.
I have always thought that having a naming sequence for EV models at traditional OEMs was a mistake. And, the way they have executed them has been less than memorable. Very difficult to remember the MB models and have any idea where they sit in the model lineup. Ditto for Infiniti. Though it was ugly, at least you knew what a Leaf was.
Using distinct model names at VW would be a big step forward. Now, if they can resist the temptation to issue names that are difficult to pronounce and remember, they might be onto something. No more Touaregs!
GM veteran: There is a wise saying, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones”. It is small consolation that GM is doing better than Ford (and I am not even sure of that, because you do NOT disclose how many billions you lose every year from your EV products which have all been dismal failures.
Reading your anti-Musk tirade, an ignorant person might think that Tesla sales, a company that has not introduced a serious mass product since 2017 (3) and 8 (Y) have plummeted. Nothing is further from the truth!!!! Autoline data showed us they only fell 13 percent!
Why don’t you look at your own, far worse, record? Why don’t you berate that Bob Lutz character, who, with a straight face, and without even attempting to fight, conceded here in AAH, that GM will lose billions from its EVs but will get the $ from its breadvan (aka SUV) profits!
Tell us also what percentage of Tesla’s EV sales are GM EV sales? DId they ever go above 10 percent of Tesla sales?
Speaking of failures (and I already considered the CT a failure), tell us how many billions did GM lose on CRUISE, while Mary Barra kept lying (or was she clueless??) that Cruise was worth… $50 billion? I wish I had a dime for every time she said that. I’d add yet another million to my net worth.
Again, those who live in glass houses…
@GM Veteran on EV names. I thought the Mercedes EQE and EQS defined the position in the line-up as E and S Class, respectively?
Roger, first year depreciation averages roughly 20%. And that is with average mileage of 15,000 miles. After that, depreciation continues at roughly 15% per year for the next 4-5 years. So, the CyberTruck with 6,000 miles experiencing 30-35% depreciation is well above normal, but not unexpected when new retail demand falls off the way it has for this model. CyberTruck looks to go down in history as Tesla’s Aztek.
Wim, you are probably right about that. It just seems that there have been a lot of EQ models and concepts at MB. Hard to keep them straight. Much like Audi and their use of eTron. I think BMW has had the best approach, selling their familiar product lines with only one extra letter to signify that it is electrically powered.
Last Saturday we had an annual meeting (via Zoom) of a company I founded with another 100 or so scientists and engineers internationally known in their fields ( some diaspora and some not) three years ago, and the chair of the board (a Harvard Archeologist six years my junior, who was a classmate in high school (6 years after me), who announced to us with delight that the US was downgraded by Moody’s.
Since he is not an expert in Econs and given his hatred for Trump and his feud with Harvard, I checked it out, and it was correct. But this is just the surface. THe downgrade was because of worries about the National US Debt, currently at 36 trillion worthless 2025 dollars. I remember under the great Reagan it was ONE trillion 1980s dollars, so make it $5 trillion today’s paper.
That’s not it. The chief economist at Moody’s (I wonder why he still has that job, having being so disastrously wrong in his predictions over time? Maybe being wrong is a prerequisite for the job?) is Mark Zandi, who is as blue a Dem as they get.
Still, Moody’s is Moody’s, a still respected outfit, so I was expecting, after many, many days of continuing to go up and swelling my net worth by another million or so in just a couple weeks, I took a look at the markets. I will look at them again as I write this now: they have utterly ignored the warning, in fact they even rose by a few tenths of a percent earlier.
Surprising, since the market is already overvalued. But maybe it will not become a bubble, as the underlying factors are very strong, and low energy prices promise much lower inflation and a lot of other good stuff that comes with it.
So, in conclusion, I’ll take it.
Wim, correct about the MB EV names, but MB just changed them again today to a much more cumbersome notation (from EQS to… “S with.. EQ Technology”!
{PS I am typing in the dark
PS2: Saw a Dutch movie about Michael De Reuyter and some naval battles he won vs the combined British-French back in the day. More of a cartoonish movie than a serious historical film, but entertaining still.
As another example: a few years ago Lincoln went from somewhat confusing short 3 letter names for their vehicles to actually calling them something (MKX to Nautilus, MKC to Corsair and the reimagined Aviator). These were well thought out premium sounding names and sales increased.
Now that it looks like the EV Dodge Daytona R/T version will be dropped (about 5 months after the model hit the dealer showrooms) still not a peep from Autoline (unless I missed it, and if so, sorry AD). I guess Dodge didn’t read the fine print disclaimer on the auto industry ‘EV Transition’ memo.
Yes, Regulus, Trump and gang want to run the US debt even higher, to reduce Elon’s taxes. Even wider wealth disparity than the already obscene state and more people in poverty is not good for society, or in all likelihood, the economy. You predict lower inflation? If Trump continues his trade war, inflation will soon be at near record levels with the tariffs being added on to much of we buy.
I thought the M-B EQE and EQS names were fine, but the interior of the only one I’ve seen up close, the $105K+ EQS SUV, was more like my Highlander than like in an S-Class sedan. I haven’t seen an EQS sedan up close, so I don’t know what it is like. Actually, the interior of the gas GLS is a far cry from the S-Class sedan, at least those of the recent past. I haven’t seen a current S-Class up close.
I was always impressed by the way that the European manufacturers indicated car size. A, B, C, D, E etc. Then, of course you find manufacturers changing the size of what they call the A car. This undoes all the logic. The numbers used to indicate engine size and I liked that too.
“Here’s one interesting observation we’ll throw into the mix. The automakers with good supplier relationships all have higher quality ratings on JD The automakers with good supplier relationships all have higher quality ratings on JD Power’s Vehicle Dependability Survey. And they also have higher profits on a per-vehicle basis.”
That observation makes me wonder if there’s a connection between Ford’s industry-leading number of recalls and the above.
I regret that I missed the episode with the Start-Stop poll. I only have experience with it on ICE vehicles my wife has owned. We both HATE it and find it terribly annoying that a button has to be pressed to disable it every time we get in the car. Currently it’s on her Hyundai Palisade, where we found a free hack that keeps it disabled without any messing around with software. I simply pressed the button (to deactivate auto-start), wedged an old credit card between it and a stationary adjacent surface, cut the excess credit card away flush with the button, and used a Sharpie marker to conceal the edge black. Got that hack from another Palisade owner whose been rocking that solution for over 2 years now.
MJB, is the stop/start on the Palisade really “rough,” or did you want it disable it to reduce wear on the starter?
Regulus — Flops, jokes and glass houses
I really do not like the idea of calling some thing a flop, for, to me, it implies that the those working on the item, didn’t work hard or do their best to put out the product out that they could. While we may question the design and look of the CT, but the work the designers, engineers and workers to make it a reality, points to a job well done. The CEO, board members, executives and other individuals who approved the design are the ones whose decision making should be called into question, in how they are leading the company!
Then to say it was a “joke” only makes the lackluster sells worst, because it raise the question of who said joke was on?!?! The customer? The thousand that placed deposit and then forked over their hard earned money to buy the CT? Was it all the employees that were involved in bringing the CT from the drawing board to the street? Are they the “joke”?!?! Or what about all the tax payers and tax payer money that was given to Tesla in both the federal IRA and local tax breaks to build the plat that currently makes the CT? Was that the“joke”?!?! It just seems that anyone on the receiving end or find themselves as the butt of that “joke’, may not find it very funny!
What is fun is how Regulus, you say that those in glass house shouldn’t throw stones, but you tear down every automaker and those here that support them and whenever anyone reports or says anything slightly provocative against your personal favor automaker, you lay the hammer on them! Talk about glass house living! LOL
The point being, everyone has an opinion and their own world view. This forum should be an opportunity to express ourselves and not attack each other behind the anonymity of the keyboard and pin names! I think most come to ALD for John and Sean’s automotive insights, all because of their connections inside the industry. I personally believe they are right then wrong and respect their opinions and appreciate the time they send getting these things together for us. The least we can do is be cordial to each other as we are allowed to offer our input on their website.